Creating - a Madly Glorious Activity

Somehow this week I have put myself in a position where I am writing two new shorts (animated - one about a fly, sort of, the other about cosmic but physically-produced 'wind'), adapting another (animated) and re-imagining a stage play into a live action short. All original and all utterly different in tone and style.

For example, in terms of styles I'm writing non-narratively but lyrically on one, telling a modern fable in another, diving into the depths of 80s films about martial arts and, finally, returning either to the world inside a beard or a commune of sky-diving octogenarians.


I'm sure this week wasn't meant to be this interesting or this varied -- I am actually trying to finish a final edit of a book for young teens - but how wonderful and exhausting that it is!

And thank god/ the universe/ cosmic powers and maybe the training I got as a freelance journo for 13 years, I can write fast. (I can also procrastinate at fiendishly sophisticated levels of slothfulness but maybe that's my evil twin in productivity terms?)

Today was a '3' day - if you're into numerology, that basically means a very creative day - so I dived in. And I think it works, most of it.

Now to work out how to raise money to put on a play next October - any ideas?!

An Invitation: Why do we write?

"I write to give myself strength -- I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of...." - Joss Whedon, writer of Buffy, Angel, Roseanne...

So... I'd like to invite all the writers I know to come up with a quote that explains to them why they write! Maybe afavourite quote that motivates them or reminds them why they keep doing something that is quite possibly insane!

To get rid of the constant question of what his work was about, Harold Pinter once said it was 'the weasel under the cocktail cabinet' -- and then found himself plagued by analyses of what this actually meant and questions asking him to explain... when it meant nothing at all.

Here is the Barzakh page, please 'like'!

Two days till the official launch in Killarney, where the story originated last October, Barzakh is galloping homewards... Amazing troupe of talent covering every aspect of the small movie with an enormous heart!

The story of one refugee to Ireland, an Afghan boy, called Rabah.... Please like the page if you can!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Barzakh-Movie/335653153206069?fref=ts

Directed by Donogh MacCarthy-Morrogh and produced by Odette Norman, we were determined from the start that Barzakh would stand on its own as a film. That way, it can achieve far more than any promotional video telling us what's wrong with the system in place for those seeking asylum in our country.


No refugee would leave the country he or she loves to travel here unless he or she had very genuine reason... Every day they wait for a decision to be made is a day wasted when they could be starting their lives here and their children's lives and becoming whole.

Barzakh, the movie...

Some of you might remember when I wrote about a commission last year to write a short film about refugees in Ireland. (thiswriterscrazylife.blogspot.ie/search?q=kasi)

Well, this is the result, produced by Stormlight Productions, Cork, directed by Donogh MacCarthy-Morrogh and starring Moncef Mansur, Marcus Bale & Hamza Fidrous. It's being launched by Jimmy Deenihan in Killarney on Thursday 7th at 7pm.



Barzakh... it's an Arabic and Persian word to encapsulate the idea of a sort of purgatory between worlds, the "isthmus" between this world and the next, and since this is a film about a refugee's journey to Ireland, from a war zone to peace - no mean feat - and then being in the limbo that is refugee life while awaiting decision on status... it fits.

It also means 'obstacle", "hindrance", "separation" or "barrier". Again, it's fitting. Sadly.

Since I can't make it down, I am looking forward to a sneak preview on Wednesday at Screen Scene on Wednesday when Final Post is complete! Can not wait to see my script realised!